Vietnam
veteran Greg Helle kept his secret for 32 years until he reached a
crossroads in life: He was going to kill himself or he was going to get
help.

In
2001, the lifelong Iowan came to Florida to save his life. Helle entered
a one-of-a-kind U.S. Veterans Affairs program in St. Petersburg designed
exclusively to counsel men who were raped or sodomized in the armed
services. At the Bay Pines VA Medical Center, Helle learned during his
daily sessions that many other men had been sexually assaulted by peers
or superiors in the military.

Helle
never reported his rape. He didn't think his officers in Vietnam would
believe him. And even if he did report the rape, he was certain the
friends of the attacker -- another GI who bunked across the hall --
would kill him.

"The
rape ruined my life," said Helle, 52, today the administrator of a
400-student veterinary teaching hospital at Iowa State University.

Greg
Helle, a veterinary hospital administrator from Ankeny, Iowa, says he
was raped during his tour in Vietnam by fellow soldiers. A Florida Today
investigation uncovered thousands of veterans who say they suffered sex
abuse in the military.

Now,
the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has quietly begun collecting
nationwide data on the extent to which men like Helle have been sexually
traumatized in the armed services.

The
preliminary results put the projections of sexual trauma cases in the
tens of thousands, including hundreds of men now living in Central
Florida.

"This
is a national crisis, but nobody will listen to me," said mental
health counselor Roger Girard, a 22-year military veteran who treated
dozens of sexually assaulted men, including Helle, at Bay Pines.
"The brass of the military don't want to admit thishappens
because it's a black eye."

To
uncover the extent of the problem, Florida Today obtained the VA's
preliminary findings from its sexual trauma survey of 1.67 million
veterans enrolled in 1,300 VA health care facilities across the country.
It examined VA records and interviewedgovernment
and private psychologists across the United States. And it used the
Freedom of Information Act to seek reports and prosecution information
from the military. It found: Thousands of victims. Nearly 22,500 male
veterans -- more than one of every 100 former soldiers, sailors and
airmen treated by the VA -- reported being sexually
"traumatized" by peers or superiors during their military
careers, VA survey records show. That includes 769 men in the VA's
Central Florida Health CareSystem, which
includes Brevard County, Orlando and the Tampa Bay area. Most men who
answer, "yes," to sexual trauma are being treated for other
ailments by the VA, and only a small fraction are being treated
exclusively for their military sexual abuse.

With
the survey only half over and another 1.7 million male VA patients still
to question, administrators say the final number of victims will be much
higher. "This is a sleeping phenomenon. . . . We're acknowledging
it's not just a women's problem," said Carole Turner, a VA director
who oversees the computer software collecting the sexual trauma data.

No
tracking of circumstances. Sexual trauma, as the VA defines it, includes
rape, sodomy, molestation, harassment and unwanted sexual attention such
as "touching, cornering, pressure for sexual favors, verbal
remarks." However, neither the VA survey nor the military has
categorized or counted the types of male sex abuse cases, meaning no one
fully understands the extent of the problem. The VA also does not know
how many male sexual trauma victims it treats every year. That lack of
detail makes comparisons between the VA figures and sexual trauma rates
in the active military nearly impossible. The military experience of VA
patients spans more than 60 years, so there's no conclusive way to
determine whether the prevalence of male sexual trauma among veterans
reflects rates in today's active military.

Two
military services do not comply with sex abuse reporting rules. Despite
a congressional mandate that the military keep statistics on violent
crimes, including sexual assaults, just two of the four major services
-- the Army and the Air Force – could provide any statistics on sex
crimes, and only the Army tracked the victims' gender. The Navy and
Marine Corps could provide no information. The Army, the biggest service
with about 1 million active and reserve personnel, reported 78 cases of
sexual assault on men in the past 12 years -- about seven per year -- a
number that struck veterans, criminologists and psychologists as low.

Military
unaware or unconvinced of a problem. A Marine Corps spokesman dismissed
the male sexual trauma subject as an "off-the-wall topic" when
asked to arrange an interview with a senior Marine officer. An Army
spokeswoman called the reportedcases in her
service "statistically insignificant." Another Army
spokeswoman, when asked about sexual assaults on men, began explaining
the military's policy onhomosexuality.
Lack of reporting by men could be a major reason why military leaders
know little of the problem.

Domination
the prime motive. Veterans Affairs psychologists who are treating
sexually assaulted vets described most male victims as the youngest,
lowest-ranking enlistees in the military, and the sexual assaults were
carried out to humiliate or demean the victims. Such attacks are not
homosexual acts, but efforts to assert power over others, the VA
psychologists stressed. These nationwide counselors interviewed by
Florida Today said most of the VA's treatment cases involved physical
abuse, not insults or harassment. "It's pretty clear that we're
discussing unwanted sexual activity that's coercive in nature,"
said Art Rosenblatt, coordinator of the VA's military sexual trauma
program in Central Florida.

Military
refusal

Florida
Today asked all four major armed services and the Department of Defense
for interviews with officers or policymakers to discuss its findings on
military sexual trauma involving men. All four and the Pentagon rejected
those requests.

But in
an e-mail, Marine spokesman Lt. Col. Stephen H. Kay wrote from his
Pentagon office, "I can tell you that the Marine Corps takes any
allegation of sexual assault very seriously, regardless of the genders
involved. Such matters are thoroughly investigated when reported, and
appropriate disciplinary action is taken whenwarranted."

Army
spokeswoman Elaine Kanellis said from the Pentagon, "When the Army
is made aware of it, we'll go after it. . . . I don't think it's an
epidemic."

The Air
Force, which has 612,984 active and reserve personnel, reported 136
sexual assault cases on men and women in the past five years. However,
it declined to review those cases to determine how many of the victims
were men. "When an accusation is made, things are looked
into," Air Force spokeswoman Valerie Burkes said from the Pentagon.
"If there is evidence to substantiate the allegations, the next
step is prosecution."

In
December, Florida Today formally requested information on cases at
Florida military installations such as Eglin Air Force Base near
Pensacola and the Navy's air and ship bases in Jacksonville. Patrick Air
Force Base in Brevard County reportedno sexual
assault cases involving men as the victim during the past 20 years.

"It's
an issue that clearly no one in the military wants to discuss,"
said an ex-Marine from Brevard County who was sexually attacked by his
commanding officer in Vietnam in 1969. The former Marine, now in his 50s
and a counselor treating trauma survivors in Central Florida, asked not
to be named. Florida Today agreed, in keeping with its normal policy on
sexual abuse victims.

High
prevalence

"Sexual
assaults on military men is much more prevalent than people
imagine," said VA psychologist David Sutton, a former Air Force
pilot and Vietnam vet who counsels male sexual assault victims at a VA
hospital in Big Spring, Texas. "In basic training, it's easy to
exert one's power over a young recruit. And even if they do report it,
there is an attempt to disregard it or an attempt to cover it up."

While
the VA survey counted 22,486 cases of male sexual trauma, it also showed
19,463 cases of female sexual trauma – validating the reports of
sexual abuse rates among women that made news throughout the 1990s.

The VA
survey showed 22 percent of female vets said they suffered sexual trauma
during their armed services careers. That roughly matches an earlier,
national survey of women veterans in 1996. That survey found 23 percent
of women reported sexual assault in the military and 55 percent reported
harassment.

Abuse
of women in the military became a mainstream news media topic in the
1990s. Attention focused primarily on the Navy's Tailhook scandal of
1991, which involved Navy and Marine aviators forming a sexual
harassment gantlet at a Las Vegas convention, and the Army's Aberdeen
Proving Ground sex abuse cases of 1996.

The
thousands of sexual trauma cases that involved men in the armed forces,
however, has caught everyone off guard, from military leaders to members
of Congress who sit on Senate and House committees that oversee the
military. Nearly every federal official interviewed for this story was
unaware the VA had even begun a survey of male veterans -- or female
vets.

Psychologist
Terri Spahr Nelson, a decorated Army veteran from Ohio who wrote a book
last year on sex abuse in the armed forces, said the attention now
focused on male military sexual trauma is similar to the public
spotlight cast on the plight of sexually abused military women 10 to 15
years ago.

'I felt
dirty'

Among
the men being treated by the VA, sexual trauma victims have described
officers or older enlisted men gang raping recruits, soldiers sodomizing
victims with gunbarrels and forcing young enlistees to perform oral sex.

Paul
Branesky, a retired Navy diver from St. Petersburg, said four sailors
raped him in the summer of 1967 at submarine training school in Groton,
Conn.

"I
didn't report anything. . . . They told me if I said anything I was
dead. After I got up off the floor, I stood in the shower for three
hours trying to wash the way I felt. I felt dirty and shameful,"
Branesky said. "Anybody who has reported anything, themilitary
classified them with a section 8 that they were homosexual and got them
out of the military."

Branesky,
55, has been treated for the sexual trauma at Bay Pines VA Medical
Center in St. Petersburg since 2001.

"I
know my life was hell and my wives' lives were hell," he said,
referring to four marriages. "I still have friends in the military
and I know it's still going on today."

Branesky's
case is consistent with many others, psychologists said.

"The
military is a macho organization, and if a man is sexually assaulted,
there is a stigma that means the man was weak in some way or homosexual
or he did something to warrant the rape," said Maria Crane, a VA
psychologist who works on trauma cases in St. Petersburg.

The
Department of Veterans Affairs survey comes in response to a 1999
federal law designed to improve sexual trauma treatment for veterans.
Just as other doctors' offices ask patients about their prescription
drugs or supplements, VA clinicians routinely ask veterans whether they
were ever sexually traumatized during theirmilitary
careers. By simply counting the "yes" responses, VA officials
hope to grasp the extent of the problem.

"Men
have not been asked before," said Sarah Ullman, a University of
Chicago criminologist who has studied rape victims.

All
generations

Mental
health counselor Girard, who left Bay Pines two months ago, said the
veterans he counseled for sexual assaults ranged in age from men in
their early 20s to an 87-year-old World War II vet. His patients
included victims from every war era who were based at domestic and
overseas installations. The modest counseling facility at Bay Pines has
treated more than 100 men since 1994.

Out of
1,300 VA health sites nationwide, the Bay Pines center has the only
residential treatment program designed exclusively for daily treatment
for male sexual trauma victims. Modeled after the facility's program for
women, the men's program is being

restructured
and will treat six to eight male vets during four-week sessions starting
in April.

Most
sexual trauma patients reported being attacked as young enlistees. But
Girard said few assaults were carried out as hazing rituals. The only
initiation-style sexual assaults patients reported were when sailors
fondled victims' genitals or sodomized them with broomsticks when they
sailed across the equator or the international date line, he said.

A more
typical case involved a young Navy shipping clerk at a base in Adack,
Alaska, in 1970. The clerk, Nelson Alvarez of Abilene, Texas, was
ordered by a supervisor into a metal building, kicked viciously in the
back and raped.

"I
was a 20-year-old kid. There was no way I would report this. If I
reported it, I would have been labeled a homosexual," said Alvarez,
a 52-year-old father of two who said the incident happened on Sept. 28,
1970. "The pain was so intense that I became literally numb. It
felt as if my spirit had left me."

Another
case involved a 20-year-old Marine who visited what he thought was the
house of new military friends in the Camp Pendleton area outside San
Diego in the summer of 1972. But he said he was raped. The former Marine
recalled the base psychiatrist referred him to a Pendleton counselor for
treatment.

The
former Marine, now 50 and living in northwest Ohio, recalled his
counselor's words: "His advice was to get a six-pack and get on the
hill."

Healing
via telling

The
painful experiences resonated with Vietnam veteran Helle, who was
treated at Bay Pines in St. Petersburg during a 31/2-month period in
2001. The trauma described by men there ranged from gang rape to
one-on-one penetration, he said.

"There
were all services there. There were Marines there. Marines are tough as
nails," Helle said. "These guys were not unemotional about it.
One guy was a massive guy, a tough guy. He said the healing was in the
telling."

"I
do not hold the government responsible for what happened to me. I'm a
patriot. I'd be over in Afghanistan, but I'm too damn old," said
Helle, who volunteered to serve in Vietnam after being a high school
wrestler in Iowa. "I'm not here to destroy the government. I'm not
here to destroy the VA."

Most
members of Congress who sit on veterans affairs and armed forces
committees contacted by Florida Today declined to comment. Their press
representatives said they first wanted to see the VA's military sexual
trauma report. U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson,

D-Tallahassee,
who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, did not return phone
calls to comment.

But
U.S. Rep. John McHugh, an upstate New York Republican who chairs an
Armed Services Committee's subcommittee, said, "My intention is to
sit down and see how much of a disconnect there is between the VA
numbers and the number of reported incidents in the active
military." McHugh's district includes the Fort Drum Army base near
the Canadian border.

A wider
problem?

The
VA's military sexual trauma survey may indicate an even wider problem,
system psychologists said. Considering that 18 million of the 24.5
million veterans in the United States have never used the VA's health
system, there could be thousands more male sexual trauma cases the
survey won't account for, VA psychologists such as St. Petersburg's
Crane pointed out.

It's
possible that veterans who have been sexually traumatized are more
likely to use the VA system than those who have not, meaning the rates
could be lower for the overall veteran population. However, the lack of
reliable crime information from the military makes such a comparison
impossible. And even if all armed services kept such statistics, they
might not accurately reflect the problem. Most sexual assaults on men go
unreported, VA psychologist John Carracher of West Palm Beach said.

Military
men do not report the attacks because they fear no one will believe
them, their careers will be damaged, they will be labeled homosexual or
they will suffer retribution from the attackers or their commanders, VA
psychologists said.

Criminologist
Nathan Pino of Georgia Southern University, could not believe the Army
had only 78 male-on-male sexual assaults since 1990, as the service
reports.

"The
military is geared toward being hyper-masculine. And if you said you
were gang-raped, it would be a blow to your manhood," said Pino,
who recently published an article on the differences between men and
women reporting sexual assaults. "The military is like any closed
society, like police departments. You don't rat on anyone. And if you
did report it, you would fear retaliation."

In
interviews with psychologists treating sexually assaulted men across the
United States, one phrase -- "the military culture" -- came up
again and again in explanations of why military leaders won't discuss
the topic, why men are prone to keep theirsecrets. It's a culture far different from the civilian world; a
culture of power and order where there are no confidential sessions with
psychologists.

"To
admit you were raped," Helle said, "is so far against what
you're trained for."

The
focus on men sexually assaulted in the military comes about 10 to 20
years after the first major efforts to help women in the armed forces.

Attacks
and harassment of military women got earlier attention because the rate
is so much higher. An Ohio therapist who served
in the Army and wrote a book on the subject last year says sexual abuse
against women in the military is an "epidemic." In Terri Spahr
Nelson's book, "For Love of Country: Confronting Rape and Sexual
Harassment in the U.S. Military," she cited a 1995 Department of
Defense study that showed 47 percent of women received "unwanted
sexual attention."

The
study also showed 9 percent of women in the Marines, 8 percent of women
in the Army, 6 percent of women in the Navy and 4 percent of women in
the Air Force were victims of rape or attempted rape in 1995. Reported
rates of sexual trauma of women in the military are twice as high as
those in civilian life. A 1996 DOD study showed 55 percent of women
reported experiencing sexual trauma -- ranging from harassment to rape
-- compared to 24 percent of women in the civilian world. "Surveys
of women in the military tell a story of rampant sexual abuse and
harassment by their male counterparts amid concerns that the issues are
being minimized or ignored by military leaders," Nelson wrote.

Treatment
programs for sexually abused women increased as high-profile cases made
national headlines: the Navy's Tailhook incident of 1991 and the Army's
Aberdeen Proving Ground sex abuse cases of 1996.

"In
the early 1990s, Tailhook was one of the spurring events that brought it
the public eye," said Sherri Bauch, the Veterans Health
Administration's western U.S. deputy field director in Tacoma, Wash.,
and co-chairwoman of the National Military Sexual

Trauma
Work Group.

In
1992, Congress ordered the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide
treatment to female veterans traumatized by sexual assault experienced
during active military duty. VA medical centers now have a women's
veterans program manager, Bauch said.